I’m reading a compilation of Cthulhu Mythos stories by people other than Lovecraft. It’s a little uneven. Some of them are quite good, others…uh not so much.

I found the same to be true even of the ones written by Lovecraft. Although, I think that was before I discovered that I couldn’t read story after story he had written (they are a bit formulaic for me) and would read one story a week or so.

As to the question: The IceWind Dale trilogy by R.A. Salvatore. So far it’s a bit rough. It was his first novel (IIRC) and obviously shows it’s D&D gaming roots.

Take care,

Derek

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“It is noble to be good; it is still nobler to teach others to be good—and less trouble.”—Mark Twain

Very interesting and well written, I’m about a forth of the way in, and I am enjoying the read.

from a review:

“Before the Dawn” is a very well written survey of what genetics can teach us about the origin and evolution of the human species. Starting with the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees 5 million years ago, Wade explores the latest theories about the development of the “hominid” line and explains why homo sapiens evolved differently from our cousins, the chimpanzees and the bonobos.

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Church; where sheep congregate to worship a zombie on a stick that turns into a cracker on Sundays…

Moved to here from the new thread “Bolsheviks” because it fits in this thread.

I should be sleeping at this time. But I am reading. The author is Edvard Radzinsky; the title is “Stalin: The first in-depth biography based on ...” Those who are not familiar with the Soviet history might be lost among so many names of political figures. But I am fascinated by this book.
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Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia), a retired nuclear physicist from New Jersey, USA. A am also the author of a FREE ONLINE book: “Diary of a Former Communist: Thoughts, Feelings, Reality.”

In his Culture science fiction novels Ian M. Banks explores a distant future when the galaxy is fully explored and artificial intelligence /machine intelligence supports intelligent life in the galaxy.

In this novel Banks explores the implications of being able to download consciousness to a database both for “reventing” oneself in a new body if something happens to the old one, and in this particular novel the implications of downloading consciousness to virtual worlds and living in the virtual worlds.

Some galactic societies have virtual heavens and virtual hells where they download people. The Culture is an atheistic society but not an autocratic one. Correcting this misuse of virtual realities is not easy.

Just finished a book on Attila the Hun and the end of the Roman Empire. The author has pored through all the original sources and read a great deal between the lines, based on his extensive knowledge of the times. While the result is rather speculative in places (analyzing the intentions of Attila, for example), I am happy to trust the author’s speculations, because they are so well-informed.

I had never connected the dots showing that Attila’s actions were so directly responsible for the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. For example, the decisive battle of Adrianople, which crushed the army of the Eastern Empire, was fought by Goths, but they in turn had been forced into Roman lands by the depredations of the Huns. Attila himself never won a decisive battle against any Roman army; the battle of the Catalaunian Plains was a bloody stalemate from which everybody retreated, and the strategically brilliant invasion of Italy ended in an orderly retreat. The Gothic conquest of Italy was also triggered by upheavals in the Hun Empire following the death of Attila. And finally, all sorts of internal shenanigans and political intrigues that weakened the Romans were driven, to a large extent, by the need to respond to the continuing threat that Attila posed.

All in all, Attila emerges as a brilliant strategist who achieved wonders largely through the effective combination of diplomacy and the threat of military action—while seldom actually engaging in such action. When he did act, his campaigns were executed brilliantly, with a minimum of wasted resources and a maximum of benefits. Attila deliberately obliterated entire districts, not so much for booty as to demonstrate just how dangerous he was, thereby gaining considerable leverage in subsequent diplomatic negotiations. I suspect that he actually derived greater benefit from his diplomatic settlements than from his military campaigns.

Several days ago I started reading God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters by Sarah Posner, but I kept having to resist the urge to underline, highlight, and write “WTF” in the margins of a library book (I would NEVER do that, btw). So, I purchased it at Amazon. I’m awaiting its arrival.

So I decided to read Alice in Wonderland in the meantime. I finished it today and began reading Through the Looking Glass. But, I’m a little conflicted. The other day I heard Frank Schaeffer discuss his latest book Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible’s Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics—and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) on Dan Barker and Annie-Laurie Gaylor’s FFRF show and now I’m a little tempted to purchase it for my Nook.